Spring 2014 : African American Studies 241 Researching Race, Gender and Justice

Course Description:  How do intersections of race, gender, class, age or sexuality shape experiences with policing and punishment? This course is designed to encourage the development of an intersectional analysis of the expansion and entrenchment of the criminal justice system over the last forty years and its related consequences. We will examine historical and contemporary trends in policing and punishment, but our main focus will be on the expansion of the criminal justice system since the mid-20th century and the entrenchment of the system in distressed urban neighborhoods in the post-Civil Rights era, with a focus on the experience of African Americans living in urban settings and research and data from San Francisco’s Fillmore neighborhood.